2008 Woodie Awards
Double reading impresses writing students
Issue date: 11/15/07
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Last Thursday, the Writing Seminars department hosted novelist
Porochista Khakpour and poet Steve Scafidi to read their respective works. The crowd was a mix of professors, enthusiastic grad students and underenthusiastic IFP students.
First up was Porochista Khakpour, an Iranian novelist who graduated from the Hopkins Writing Seminars program, where she was awarded the Elliot Coleman Fellowship. Her first novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, was an "Editor's Choice" of the New York Times. Or, as a fellow audience member put it, "She's a pretty big deal."
Khakpour exchanged hugs with a few faculty members and took the stage, as it were, speaking briefly about her experience and garnering laughs from some Writing Seminars inside jokes that left the poor undergraduates baffled.
She read a few passages from her novel, the stories of an Iranian-American family dealing with the paranoia of America immediately after 9/11. Khakpour explained how she had never been a "write what you know" author but was prodded by the depeartment to do so.
Khakpour's writing was intelligent, clever and entertaining - just as all those big-time reviewers said. It was obvious that her style would make for an excellent novel. There were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments for the crowd, all of which seemed to appreciate Khakpour's style.
However, Khakpour is, after all, a novelist, and not a spoken-word poet. It felt as if there was more waiting in the words that what Khakpour gave - emotion that was there, in both the book and inside her - but she did not verbally express it. Nor did she look up once during either excerpt that she read - an easy way to bring the audience in.
That is not to say we blame her. A novelist need not be a slam poet on the side, and Khakpour's writing is more than capable of justifying itself.
Next up was poet Steve Scafidi. His book of poems, Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, which contrasts nicely with his "day job:" He works in West Virginia as a cabinet maker.
Porochista Khakpour and poet Steve Scafidi to read their respective works. The crowd was a mix of professors, enthusiastic grad students and underenthusiastic IFP students.
First up was Porochista Khakpour, an Iranian novelist who graduated from the Hopkins Writing Seminars program, where she was awarded the Elliot Coleman Fellowship. Her first novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects, was an "Editor's Choice" of the New York Times. Or, as a fellow audience member put it, "She's a pretty big deal."
Khakpour exchanged hugs with a few faculty members and took the stage, as it were, speaking briefly about her experience and garnering laughs from some Writing Seminars inside jokes that left the poor undergraduates baffled.
She read a few passages from her novel, the stories of an Iranian-American family dealing with the paranoia of America immediately after 9/11. Khakpour explained how she had never been a "write what you know" author but was prodded by the depeartment to do so.
Khakpour's writing was intelligent, clever and entertaining - just as all those big-time reviewers said. It was obvious that her style would make for an excellent novel. There were plenty of laugh-out-loud moments for the crowd, all of which seemed to appreciate Khakpour's style.
However, Khakpour is, after all, a novelist, and not a spoken-word poet. It felt as if there was more waiting in the words that what Khakpour gave - emotion that was there, in both the book and inside her - but she did not verbally express it. Nor did she look up once during either excerpt that she read - an easy way to bring the audience in.
That is not to say we blame her. A novelist need not be a slam poet on the side, and Khakpour's writing is more than capable of justifying itself.
Next up was poet Steve Scafidi. His book of poems, Sparks from a Nine-Pound Hammer, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, which contrasts nicely with his "day job:" He works in West Virginia as a cabinet maker.
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